The Architecture of Ocean Governance

In the context of sea level rise due to climate change, increasing maritime pollution, deep-sea resource extraction, and maritime border conflicts, the seas can be considered an emblem of global interdependence and resulting political challenges. While there is a raising awareness of the importance of sustainable and conflict-preventing ocean governance, so far no consensus has been reached with regard to different notions of ocean governance and with regard to crucial policy areas. The aim of the paper consequently is, firstly, a theoretical conceptualization of the complex architecture of “Ocean Governance”. With its multilevel governance structure, including local, national and global governmental and non-governmental actors, ocean governance manifests crucial similarities with Global Governance. This includes the challenge to develop an analytical framework that can grasp multilevel structures and a multitude of actors. At the same time, marine spaces exhibit specific properties, which have to be taken into consideration within the development of a comprehensive conceptual framework of international ocean governance. Second, the paper aims to analyze the crucial challenges of (future) ocean governance in the light of its current status as a simultaneously overlapping and fragmented governance framework, which is characterized by a parallel system of entirely different spatial and sectoral ordering principles. We study the development of major policy areas of the current ocean governance architecture, such as the EU-Maritime Spatial Planning Directive 2014. This directive can be considered an example of increasing attempts of an integrated maritime policy aiming at an enhanced coordination of the different marine issue areas and institutions. However, it is an open question whether such spatial planning policies are sufficient to overcome the lack of more fundamental principles of a global ocean governance architecture.